Apples and Scarves
by rianahawke
Summary: Short fics about Hawke and Fenris post-DA2. Skyhold, the beach, and Wicked Grace.
1. summer night

_Hi! :) I'll be posting some one-shots here while I keep working on In the Clouds._

_The first four chapters are short scenes written for prompts. The later stories are longer. Chapter 5 is set two years before Skyhold, and Chapter 6 is set about a month after Chapter 4._

_Thanks for reading! :D I'd love to hear what you thought of them._

* * *

After a week of travel up the mountains, they were finally here. Crossing the drawbridge, entering the keep, and hearing greetings and questions but not registering any of it.

The air was… warmer, here at Skyhold. As if it were on the cusp of summer. The night sky above was scattered with bright stars. Fenris saw himself reading at a desk by an open window - how could a window be open in the middle of Harvestmere? How could he be here after only… where was…

He had to stay awake. Marcus was still wrapped in his cloak. Fenris unfurled it with a series of slow movements, trying not to jostle his sleeping child. After some thought, he peeled off Marcus' hat and mittens and stowed them in the pocket of his padded jacket. When Marcus stirred in his arms and mumbled a complaint, Fenris patted his back to soothe him.

Scout Harding had gone to stable the pack horses; Blackwall had gone… somewhere.

Varric. Varric would know where she was…

Fenris was becoming aware of how every muscle and bone in his body cried out for rest. He wanted to sit.

So he did. There was a wide staircase directly in front of him, across the grass and around the people who were heading toward the music and voices and light spilling from an open doorway. Fenris briefly thought of food. He was not hungry, the dried provisions had been more than enough for all of them, but the tavern had made him think of tomorrow, when he would be well-rested and sitting down to a hot meal shared with-

Fenris tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

Twenty-three days had passed since she left.

They were so close now - she might be just beyond that doorway, buying a round at the bar or tuning her lute - and yet his legs would not move.

He listened to a song thrush warble in a tree nearby, and counted how often it repeated the same trills and chirps. When he opened his eyes again, he watched soft clouds pass across a softer moon. Waning, a pale gold. Sliced in half like cheese…

"I could go and get us some."

What?

"There's a pretty decent variety here. We could have a picnic under the moon."

Fenris realized, first, that he had been thinking aloud, and second, that Hawke was standing in front of him with an uncontrollable grin spreading across her face. He felt one spreading across his own in a pulse of sheer joy.

She looked much the same as before, save for a few healed-over scratches on her forearms. Her shirt was loose, sleeves rolled up, same dark red trousers, same worn brown boots, but her eyes… He caught a flicker of something beneath the smile. Later; he would ask about it later, what was stirring that melancholy she so often tried to hide, even from him. The answers were all too clear, but he did not want them intruding on this, not now.

Hawke knelt down and brushed away the curls plastered to Marcus' forehead so that she could plant a kiss there. Then she sat down beside them, close enough that her and Fenris' thighs touched, and laced her fingers through his.

"I dropped a really good hand of cards just now," she whispered, and kissed the long edge of his ear. When they had more privacy, thought Fenris, he would kiss her the way he had imagined he would. More privacy, and a chance to clean up. He stank of wood smoke and stale clothes. She clearly didn't care, but he did.

"I need a bath," he said, with a wry glance at Hawke.

"Mm, not a bad idea." (Perhaps she did care.)

He held her gaze for as long as he could manage. "I have missed you."

"Same here, love. I couldn't stand it."

As he finally drifted off to sleep that night, sweltering beneath layers of clean blankets and the familiar weight of Hawke's embrace and Marcus' restless thrashing, the breeze from the open window drifting across his face, Fenris listened to the music that floated out of the tavern and mingled with the songs of the night birds in the garden.

In the months that followed, he would think of that moment, and wonder if he would ever again know such peace.

* * *

_Note: this was written for a summer event on the Caesar's Palace forum - C/P Sells Seashells by the Seashore (the prompt was "A Night in June" by William Wordsworth). The titles of Chapters 2~4 are the same as their respective prompts._


	2. bittersweet

A breeze was sifting through the leaves of the trees in Skyhold's garden. They glowed green and gold in the warmth of the afternoon sun, casting shadows on the moss-covered paving stones and the medics tending to the herbs that supplied the infirmary. The crisp mountain air made ripples across the surface of the fountain near the stone pavilion.

It also kept blowing Hawke's hair across her face.

"Pleh." She spit out another flyaway that had cut her off midsentence.

Marcus giggled and mimicked the sound. He was sitting next to her on a bench in the pavilion, swinging his legs and holding onto half of a large illustrated book. The other half was balanced on Hawke's lap.

Over in the patch that served as a kitchen garden, Fenris turned back to the cucumber trellis he was assembling. It was modeled on several larger ones that already bore spirals of green bean vines, their diamond-shaped leaves fanning outward in clusters.

He listened as Marcus tried to sound out a few letters while Hawke rearranged her waves and curls. There was the shuffle of a page turning, and the story continued. Marcus had chosen several of them from one of the higher shelves in the library, once Fenris had picked him up and read out the titles that seemed of interest to a four-year-old. Not many of those here. Perhaps they would be enough. Perhaps Marcus would not have tired of them before it was time to return home.

Hawke was leaving for Crestwood tomorrow morning. They had spent two nights together, and after the third they would part again. She would bring Lady Cadash to meet with their Grey Warden contact, and they would continue to pursue the trail of red lyrium that had followed them out of the Deep Roads all those years ago and had burst to the surface in the wake of the Breach.

A vein of it had appeared near their town in early autumn. For days after they had destroyed it with the help of a squad of Grey Wardens, the untainted lyrium in Fenris' tattoos had itched and crawled, relieved only by towels filled with conjured ice and by Marcus' little fingernails scratching away. Meanwhile, Hawke had wilted, still mentally sound but unable to do much more than move from chair to bed to chair again. Somehow the effects had been worse than at the battle against the Templars during the Kirkwall Rebellion, and when they had removed other red lyrium veins in the years since then.

They had agreed that Hawke would not repeat the experience. She had promised Fenris she would be careful. That was the only promise she could make.

But enough; she was sitting with Marcus now, her arm around his shoulders, and exclaiming at a plot twist. Marcus clapped his hands to his cheeks and flopped backwards.

Fenris sat back on his heels; he had not been paying close attention. Something about forest creatures. A frog and a toad. "Have I missed some excitement?"

"Daddy!" Marcus squirmed sideways and peeked at him through his fingers. "Can we read it again tomorrow?"

"If you like."

"I want to read it again!" He lifted his side of the book, like the half-door that led to the courtyard garden back home, and ran down the steps of the pavilion.

Hawke shrugged and set the book down on the bench.

"Don't you want to read another book with Mummy first?" asked Fenris, as Marcus crouched next to him and began pulling up weeds.

"I have to leave really early tomorrow morning, little bee," Hawke said, joining him. "We won't have any time after breakfast."

"Oh." Marcus dumped a handful of weeds and dirt clumps to the side. He mashed the dirt for a bit, contemplating.

Hawke made a little bouquet from some droplet-shaped leaves. "I'll be back soon, don't worry. I can't say when, but soon. And I'll write." She tucked the bouquet behind Marcus' ear, and made another one that she slipped into Fenris' tunic pocket.

The green beans were thoroughly de-weeded that afternoon, as were the radishes and lettuce. Marcus got three bedtime stories that night.

Neither of his parents could sleep.

In a quiet corner of the battlements, Fenris touched the small of Hawke's back, beneath her cloak, and drew her closer. She rested a hand against his chest, watching silently as he lifted her wrist and began to wrap a frayed strip of red cloth around it.

"Take this with you," he said.

"Fen, I - I can't…"

That surprised him. "How come?"

"It's just… I gave it to you."

Fenris folded the edge of the cloth band. "You did."

"Well, what if it's, I don't know, bad luck? Giving it back."

"Not if you were borrowing it."

There; a glimmer of a smile. "All right."

Some time later, Fenris trailed his lips downward, along the line of her jaw, her throat. The soft fabric on her wrist pressed against the back of his neck.

"Safe return."

"Hmm?" He kissed her collarbone.

"That's what it means."

He paused. "Or less chafing under your gauntlet."

"Wait, I thought it was supposed to be romantic."

"Is it not?"

"Fen! Are you serious?" She burst into laughter.

"No harm will come to you," said Fenris, a teasing note in his voice.

Hawke nodded, her mouth twisting as she held in another laugh. "Of any kind."

Then there had been no more sadness, not until the last moment they held each other, at the drawbridge, framed by the frozen mountains and clouded sky.


	3. geometry

How had the morning gone by so fast? It was almost noon, judging by the view from the infirmary's narrow windows. The room was kept quiet and dim at all times of day. On a cot in the corner, a young assistant cook was sleeping through a wretched headache.

Hawke poured the last of the powdered spindleweed from the mortar into a ceramic jar, linked her hands over her head, and took a good, long, silent stretch. After who knew how long spent hunched over preparing herbs, it felt fantastic. Covering her mouth to stop a yawn from escaping, she braced herself against the heavy wooden table and did a leg stretch or two. She patted the six-month bump under her loose gray tunic and red trousers, which had been fitted with drawstrings and a makeshift front panel that would probably hold for another few weeks. Fingers crossed.

Time to head off for lunch before all the good bits of stew got eaten. Although, thought Hawke as she went out to the keep, those walnuts and dried cherries she'd snacked on could probably sustain her just slightly longer. Varric was watching Marcus for the morning anyhow, and the armory was right over there...

* * *

Hawke had expected a whoosh of heat the first time she'd stepped into the forge on the ground floor of the armory, but the ceiling was higher than it looked from the outside, and the windows were kept open. This time, she was greeted by the sizzle of horseshoes being dunked in a cooling trough and the light tapping of a hammer on a dented pauldron. None of the three blacksmiths heard the door open and shut.

It took a few large gestures to get Fenris' attention. He was sitting at a table, surrounded by small piles of materials and leaning over something with a wire saw. The handles of what was probably a pair of pliers stuck out from the pocket of his smudged work apron. Hawke was disappointed to see that he was still wearing a shirt.

Fenris gave her a curious look as he rolled up one of the flaps of his leather helmet and removed the beeswax from his ear.

"I thought we were meeting Varric in the Great Hall," he said.

"Yes, but I finished up early," she replied, settling next to him on the workbench and folding an arm over her rounded belly. "Thought I'd come over and watch. Do you mind?"

"Er, no, but-" He scratched the back of his neck. "It's not much to look at right now."

Amid the clutter were a few discs of silverite and saucers filled with polished stones and crushed glass. One of the discs had raised edges, bent upward and hammered smooth; it held strands of flattened wire that formed diamonds and triangles where they intersected.

"Are the stones going in there, then?" asked Hawke, pointing at the hollows between the wires.

"If I can manage to inlay them properly. The book I found could have included a few more details." Fenris studied his work with a serious, thoughtful expression that Hawke had found herself missing terribly in the months she was gone. "I might do both the stones and the glass."

"I'd go with the quartz with the blue glass, if you want another opinion. Or you could pair it with the fluorspar. Or all three, maybe."

"I'll try that. Perhaps the quartz with fluorspar and green glass."

He had just been sawing those larger pieces of glass down to a usable size. Tomorrow, he would polish them with sandpaper, if there weren't more of the usual blacksmithing tasks to be done.

"At points I feel that I might be wasting my effort," said Fenris, as they left for the Great Hall. "Everything I've created so far is still so... rough."

"That's how I feel when I'm learning a new song on the lute."

"Truly? You hide it well."

That earned him a grin; she knew he'd missed her off-key chords and muttered cursing.

"I suppose it's the same, in a way," she replied. "It just takes time."

Hawke felt his hand slip into hers, his grip light but secure. She'd been back at Skyhold for three weeks. At times it felt like nothing had changed between them since she'd left for Adamant, and at other times, they surprised each other. Not a mismatch, just a different fit.

That afternoon, she found a book of sheet music in the library and went for some practice in the Herald's Rest.


	4. cards

When it started to rain again, Varric went to look for a pack of cards.

"Heard enough about my travels for today?" Hawke called after him, above the din of the other patrons. She slumped back in her chair and twisted her hips, trying to get comfortable. The furniture here at the Herald's Rest was much sturdier than back at the Hanged Man, and a bit lacking in dagger carvings and ale stains. Eh, that would be remedied soon enough.

"I've always got room for more," said Varric, over one burly shoulder. After a brief search of what he had nicknamed the "box of crap" in the corner, he returned with one of the tattered decks of cards that floated around Skyhold. This one was held together by twine and a scrap of parchment, which Varric unwrapped and set aside (near his tea mug, but not too close to the candle holder).

"You look drained, Hawke," he commented, while cutting and shuffling the deck. "I'm not gonna push you for any more details."

She flapped her hand at him. "The only pushing that's been going on here is a certain someone's foot against my intestines. So, Wicked Grace?"

"None other."

"Hold on, I've been smelling meat pies from downstairs." Hawke eased herself up and collected her eggshell-strewn plate and empty mug. She leaned back and balanced them on her belly in a quick experiment. Nope, not big enough yet.

On the stairwell, she collided with two familiar figures carrying damp cloaks.

"It's raining, Mummy!"

"So it is! I see you've been playing in puddles again."

"Uh-huh!" Marcus poked her leg with a sock-covered foot.

Fenris had taken it as a welcome opportunity to remove his footwear entirely. Hawke noticed him wiggle his toes as they spoke on the landing.

"Hey, love. Did you see any-"

"Meat pies?" Fenris finished for her. "There's a batch that arrived from the kitchen just after us. You'd better hurry." He brushed a few crumbs from her shirt. Hawke could smell the dampness of his clothes and feel the heat that he radiated. Morris had given him another haircut yesterday. Maker, did it suit him well.

She touched his arm and edged past him. "Varric's starting up a game of Wicked Grace, if you're interested."

"What do you think, Marcus?"

Much nodding and excited hopping.

"We'll meet you up there."

Hawke managed to snag a few pies and fill the rest of the plate with assorted snacks. Then came three mugs of hot tea and an extremely slow ascent of the staircase.

"Look, I've brought your favo… wait, I thought you were going to play helper."

"I can play on my own now," said Marcus, waving a hand of cards from the other side of the table. "Daddy and Auntie Josephine taught me." He grabbed a dried fig and shoved it into his mouth.

Fenris disapproved. "Marcus. What have we said about taking bites?"

As that conversation continued with mumbling and a demonstration of table manners, Hawke started to wonder again about just how much had changed while she was away. How much she'd missed. Every day she thought she'd heard the whole of it - and then, there would be different favorites, or a new skill or bad habit, or a story that had been read so many times that it had gotten boring.

Varric seemed to pick up on her reaction, even though she hadn't said anything. Well, she'd said enough already on the subject. Sometimes she caught more than a hint of regret in the way her old friend looked at her. There was commiseration, too, in the grimace that had crossed his scarred face just now. He looked away and busied himself with dealing her a hand. As he slid five cards across the table, the candlelight reflected off the small hoops in his ears and the embroidery on his red tunic and green sash.

They played almost to the end of the deck in their first round of Wicked Grace.

"Your turn, kiddo," said Varric.

To his right, Marcus squinted at his cards, whispered to himself, and took the Knight of Wisdom from the top of the discard pile. He sat back and folded his legs so his knees were level with his chin.

Varric leaned over and spoke behind his hand. "You sure you want that?"

"Don't help him this time," said Fenris.

"He's four, give him a break."

"It's pretty," said Marcus, examining the card more closely.

Hawke licked some gravy from the side of her thumb. "At least you aren't helping him cheat."

"Heh. That'll be next."

"He won't need it," said Fenris, as he drew from the deck. "Didn't you once say I was the luckiest card player you'd ever seen?"

Varric let out a short bark of a laugh. "Not in those exact words, but yeah."

"It's not luck anymore."

"You should've seen us when we were snowed in last winter," said Hawke. "Also, I just drew the Angel of Death. Show your cards, everyone."

Marcus won a pile of raisins that day.

He shared it with his Uncle Varric.


	5. sand

Fenris made his way across the shoreline rocks, feeling for dry spots among the lichen.

From the edge of the tide pool, Bryn greeted him with a loud _whuf_. A chunk of driftwood fell from his mouth and tumbled into the pool with a splash.

"Have you found something?" asked Fenris. He climbed over to Bryn and gave him a fond scratch behind the ears. The mabari butted his head against Fenris' hip, in a gesture that would have thrown him off balance once, back in Kirkwall, when Bryn was the first to greet friends at Hawke's door. His miniature tail wagged at a furious pace, a sight Fenris had always found comical on such a powerfully built war hound. It suited him better nowadays, when there were few things Bryn liked more than to rest his head on your lap and fall into a deep, snoring slumber. Some days, though, his old energy came back, and a game of fetch turned into a chase across the beach.

They had run between the cliffs and the sea, away from Hawke and the sandcastles that she was building and little Marcus was gleefully destroying. Across the clean brown sand, through mats of washed-up kelp and crusts of barnacles. The breeze that rippled through Fenris' linen shirt was sharp with salt and carried none of the fish stink that had made him steer clear of the docks since they'd arrived here in town. Further inland it mixed with the scent of pine needles; when a storm was coming it gusted through the main square, wound its way through side streets, swept in through the open tavern door.

Not today, though; the sun was out behind filmy clouds and the sky was a fresh blue.

There would be time enough later this afternoon to visit the Heidruns and ask about the old house they wanted to sell.

The tide pool shone clear in the midday light, filled by the lace-thin waves that flowed in from the sea and through the labyrinth of rock. Fish darted to and fro like streaks of veridium ore. The pebbles and grasses at the bottom formed a textured rainbow of red, gray, brown, and green. A flame-colored starfish clung to a large rock near where Fenris and Bryn stood.

Bryn was watching the starfish as it inched its way across in pursuit of some unknown goal. He looked up at Fenris with his tongue lolling out, as if to ask a friendly question.

"I think it would rather we left it to its business," said Fenris. "I doubt its idea of play is the same as yours."

Bryn tilted his head.

Fenris patted the dog's massive neck. "We should be going before the tide comes in."

He retrieved the stick of driftwood from where it knocked against the edge of the pool.

"One more round?"

Bryn panted and wagged his tail again.

"Ready yourself." Fenris shook a stream of water from the driftwood and, arcing his arm with a grunt, threw it farther down the beach.

With a joyful yelp, Bryn dashed off to where the stick had landed behind a fallen tree. He disappeared, then reappeared, popping up like one of the spring crocuses that lined the sides of the road. When he brought it back, Fenris rewarded him with another scratch behind the ears, then threw the driftwood toward the stretch of beach where they had started out.

The stick sailed over a tall outcropping, pursued immediately by Bryn. Fenris followed after at a leisurely pace, watching him lope across the rocks and scrabble on patches of kelp and lichen.

He soon heard a thump and a bright greeting in a woman's voice. By the time Fenris climbed over the outcropping himself, Bryn had already dropped the driftwood near the latest and most intact of four sandcastles. He had settled on his haunches in front of Hawke and was patiently allowing Marcus to cover his paws and forelegs. Marcus was methodical about it, grabbing and dumping handfuls of sand even when Bryn licked at his face and he spilled it all down the front of his tunic. Not yet two years old, and he was already showing an unexpected level of focus and determination. A mind full of thoughts that for the time being were known to nobody but himself. Fenris wasn't sure if a child was meant to look so serious while at play. (He knew what Hawke would say to that, and the impish face that would go with it. _Hmm, I wonder where he could have gotten that from..._)

She was waving to him now, all rolled trousers and wind-tangled hair. Fenris raised a hand in reply and settled himself on the opposite side of the sandcastle. His greatsword and her staff lay behind them, along with a weathered canvas bag.

"Won't be long until high tide," said Hawke. "Too bad." She rested her chin on her fist and stared out to sea.

"We could come back later," said Fenris, gathering up a handful of damp sand.

"As in tomorrow?"

He pressed a patch onto the slumping castle walls. "Later than that, perhaps."

Hawke followed suit on her side of the sandcastle. She hummed a snatch of a tune, adding to the low crash of the waves and Marcus' happy chatter to Bryn.

"I like it here," said Fenris, with an ease that felt new and invigorating.

So few of the places where they'd stayed since leaving Wycome were worth remembering at all. These recent months had been a blur of huddled nights and sore limbs. Even when an area was free of Templars and the local innkeeper only watched Fenris with mild suspicion when they paid for a room, there was still the matter of finding work while caring for a toddler who got into more or less everything.

A bright spot was that they had Bryn again, after Isabela sent word to meet her in a cove where she'd docked her pirate ship. Those had been three days well spent. Hawke couldn't bear to go further into Ferelden, for reasons she had trouble articulating to Fenris, so they'd followed the coastline from there, gathering information for the red lyrium investigation, marking their maps with grease pencils and charcoal shading that blotched in the rain.

They had discussed Jader and its Grey Warden fortress - whether it was worth giving up their cover as Verus of Perivantium and Bethany of Gwaren in exchange for a warm bed. The chances were good that someone there had fought at Kirkwall or knew of Hawke's brother in their ranks. The Wardens kept a generous table; a child would never go hungry there. An elf and a mage would be received openly, as equals of the rest. Any news of red lyrium would be keenly sought.

A day's walk from Jader, in the midst of cooling down from an argument (which was, in hindsight, over nothing and provoked by stress), they had been called over by two young elven women driving a cart piled high with cabbages and asked if they needed a ride into town. Mutual curiosity ensued.

Fenris smoothed the sandcastle wall. "Eleri and Sharis have been kind to us, and they know this place well. Who to trust, who to be wary of. Their families have survived here this long, on the dwarven trade route. I think, in time, we could make this our home."

Their eyes met.

"If the Heidruns want to sell us their old cottage," said Hawke, finally. "Or if there's a room for rent somewhere." She traced the lyrium lines tattooed on the back of his hand, sending a flutter of warmth up his arm. "I suppose it's, well... It's hard to imagine us having a home again. Just takes some effort to wrap my mind around the thought."

"Mine as well. I wouldn't mind waiting another day to go speak with them, if you need it."

A shake of her head, lips tight. "No, I think that would only make it worse. I'd toss and turn all night, and you'd gnash your teeth. It would be awful in the morning. Hello, sweetheart," she said, switching her attention to their son as he toddled up to her. "What's that you've got?"

"Tea." Marcus held out a scallop shell layered in pale red stripes, as if it had been dipped in spindleweed dye.

"The sea! That's a shell, it came from the sea." She gently combed through his tangles with fingers calloused from the strings of a lute and the grip of a staff. "Just like we did. All the way from Wycome."

Fenris caught a change in the set of her shoulders, as if she were trying to fend off unwelcome thoughts of Templars, hasty farewells, rough waters. Uneasy returns to once-familiar places. She was forcing it down in a way that hurt to watch. It always hurt. Fenris struggled with how to tell her that without halting the inner momentum that carried her forward. What to ask so that she would slow it just a little, and know that her loved ones would still feel safe if she did. How to give her his strength, the way that she gave him hers.

"You hardly ever complained," said Hawke to Marcus, still combing, her voice quiet. "I just fed you, and then you went to sleep and I handed you to Daddy so I could be seasick again. Even when we've had to camp in the woods or ride in a cart for hours, you didn't fuss, so long as we held you. I don't know how you've managed it, little bee. You're so good... You're so much like your Auntie Bethany."

Marcus turned around and plopped himself down in his mother's lap. He craned his neck up at her and babbled a few syllables that ended in "tea."

"Exactly! The sea." She gave him a noisy kiss that made him giggle.

Fenris stood and brushed his sand-caked hands on his leggings.

"Gib you." Marcus offered the scallop to him. "Osin."

"Ocean?" Fenris raised an eyebrow. "Have we taught him that one?"

"He's a sponge, he is. Better keep your 'vishante kaffas' to yourself." Hawke twitched. "Oh, Maker's balls. Agh!"

She squeezed her eyes shut at her double mistake. Fenris chuckled. She'd nudged him yesterday when he growled _fenedhis!_ at a new hole he'd found in his cloak. Doubtless it would be his turn again tomorrow.

"Daddy! Gib!" Marcus was patting his leg.

"You can keep it, little one. All yours. Here, put it with the other things." Fenris brought over the canvas bag and opened the clasp. Marcus placed the shell between a rag doll and a skin of water, then climbed out of Hawke's lap and ran off to play with Bryn.

Moving the shell to a side pocket, Fenris closed the clasp again and took a moment to scan their surroundings, out of habit. Low cliffs, wind-curved pines, scattered boulders, a path to the main road: no one else in sight. He set the bag down next to his sword.

The sand sank beneath his heels and over his toes as he padded back to Hawke, who was watching Marcus and Bryn dig for more treasures. She glanced up and took the hand he rested on her shoulder.

He kissed the top of her head, lingering there. Hawke turned and tilted his chin down with her thumb. Her lips were warm and chapped; she tasted of the pine resin gum that Eleri had brought out after lunch.

A slight change in position, and their teeth clacked together. Fenris grunted in surprise, and felt Hawke wince and heard her mutter that this was actually a really awkward angle.

"We can try others tonight," murmured Fenris in her ear, as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

She brushed her nose against his. "Mm. I'd like that. Want to wade in for a bit?"

Fenris stayed put slightly longer, making a mostly futile attempt to roll up his leggings. Bryn bounded ahead into the surf while Hawke and Marcus danced back and forth at the water's edge, giggling and yelping at the cold. Something made Fenris stop and observe, trying to commit the sight to memory before he followed after them. Not because this was the only time he would see it - this small happiness that had once seemed impossibly out of reach - but because it was the first.

* * *

_Note: This was beta read by the wonderful kadaransmuggler._


	6. tides

As usual, the room was a mess.

But the problem right now, as Fenris saw it, was not so much the waterfall of dirty laundry spilling out of the wicker basket in the corner, or the stacks of books crowding the edges of the desk, or the tooth-cleaning powder encrusting the bowl on the nightstand, or the stubby pastel crayons rolling across the floor.

This was fine. He could live with it. He was used to it. When you lived in the same space as a four-year-old, you had to make peace with a certain amount of chaos. Besides, his own standards were fairly lax to begin with. They only seemed to heighten when something else was weighing on his mind, some intractable personal dilemma that was ultimately up to him to address, which wasn't the case at the moment.

No, the problem was more to do with the nets of cobwebs that had collected where the stone walls met the wood-planked ceiling, and the shining filament that Fenris had noticed was slowly descending from one of them.

Beside him, Hawke stirred in her sleep.

Fenris acted quickly. He got out of bed, placed the letter he had been reading in the loose pile of papers on the desk, opened the door, and, in a wedge of sunlight, caught the spider in his cupped hands. Carrying it outside, blinking at the midday glare, he dropped it onto the wide, summer-green canopy of a tree in the garden below. It was small, the spider, and Fenris was unable to see where it had landed. But in all likelihood there would be a new, translucent web swaying in the breeze the next morning when he led Marcus down to inspect the bean trellises and melon vines. Or when Marcus dragged him down, depending on who was up first. Fenris reminded himself to thank the librarian again for asking Marcus to help her this afternoon - both for giving him a chance to practice his shaky new alphabet skills while sorting books, and for giving his parents a break.

When Fenris returned to the room, Hawke turned over in bed with a soft groan of effort.

"Did I wake you?" he asked, sitting down on his side of the bed. He brushed a stray curl from her neck.

"Yeah," she replied, her voice as bleary as her eyes. "It's all right, love. My back would have done it if you hadn't. Feels like I've been trampled by a herd of druffalo."

Fenris touched the high mound created by the blankets draping over her pregnant belly. "Do you want another hot compress?"

"Yes, please. I thought I just saw…" She yawned. "Saw you catch something."

"I let a spider out into the garden," said Fenris. He felt her flinch and wished he had been less blunt. Since returning, Hawke had been tormented by the same nightmare of a colossal demon with too many legs and too many eyes. Neither of them had slept deeply since their son was born, and so when she thrashed and whimpered last night, Fenris had woken and calmed her, the way she'd calmed him a few nights before when he came across Fade demons in the shape of Fog Warriors.

When she replied now, though, there was a note of curiosity in her voice. "Could you leave it there next time?"

"What."

She propped herself up on one elbow. "I was wondering if, you know… holding a spider might be… well, I could give it a try. Just to see if I could do it. Then maybe at some point in the next few weeks I could go down to the vault with Marcus, to see if I could handle that."

Fenris tensed, thinking of his rare visits to that deepest part of Skyhold. The lyrium seared into his skin was at times an unwanted conduit between this world and the one beyond the Veil. To his knowledge, no one else was able to hear and feel the ones who lingered there, let alone Hawke or Marcus. To them, it would be another eerie place in an ancient castle full of such places, this one with an old library and dusty casks of wine, and a prime opportunity for hide and seek or a search for hidden passages.

"We won't be going anywhere near the dungeons," said Hawke, as if to complete his thought.

"I know," Fenris replied, absently stroking a thumb over the curve of her belly.

"Speaking of which, I wonder if they're ever going to fix the gaping hole in the wall down there. It doesn't seem like a good idea to have a straight drop down the mountainside like that. Maker, what I'd give to know the story behind it. Maybe the records in the library will have a few words to say."

Fenris hummed in agreement. He liked it when she went on rambles like this. You never knew where she would end up, and in the meantime you could sit back, make yourself comfortable, let the warmth of her voice envelop your tired body, murmur a question or a reply now and then, and, for a little while, think of nothing else. He fell asleep that way sometimes, with his head resting on the soft fullness of her thighs, her fingers slowly raking across his scalp.

This time, she cut it short. Her fingers clenched against the mattress, her wrists braced against it at a sharp angle. There was a heaviness in her expression when she looked up again.

"Do you… I mean, does it make sense? Wanting to do this. I haven't entirely convinced myself of it yet."

"You've feared spiders as long as I've known you, Hawke. After what you've experienced... I think anyone would find it hard to bear. Maybe it isn't a matter of sense, or of being right or wrong." Fenris leaned down and kissed the bridge of her nose, her lips. "I'll watch your back," he added, leaning his forehead against hers. "Just as you've watched mine. When you decide it's the right time, tell me." He shifted up from the bed again, intending to reheat the water over the fireplace for another hot compress.

Hawke laid a hand on his arm, stopping him. "Could we try it right now?"

* * *

Fenris learned several things from his search of the cobwebs near the ceiling above the desk. One, that the chair was more than high enough for a tall elf in his thirties to reach said cobwebs and note with a sort of disgusted interest how well the spiders had been feasting on flies and gnats. Two, that the desk was splattered with several new drops of dark blue sealing wax, which had hardened to a dull sheen next to older blobs of crimson wax and splotches of black ink.

"This desk must have a grudge against us by now," said Fenris, as he watched a spider climb onto the back of his hand, its little legs skittering over the raised lines of his tattoos as he coaxed it into his palm.

Hawke sat up in a rustle of blankets. "Ah! I forgot to clean it up last night. I spilled the supplies when I was writing to Tamar. That was while you were still with Bull's Chargers at the tavern. She's in the Emprise du Lion now, by the way. Says she missed the snow. She's been doing some rock climbing again, like she did when we were crossing the Hunterhorns. Honestly, some days I wake up and I'm surprised not to see a cluster of bed rolls around the ashes of a campfire."

"And I am surprised to find," said Fenris, as he stepped down from the chair, "that I don't have the bed to myself anymore."

"You miss being able to sprawl out like a starfish or roll yourself up in all the blankets?"

"Perhaps."

"I swear I've seen you do that. I get up to go to the privy in the middle of the night, and then I come back and it's mayhem."

"I disavow any knowledge of this," Fenris replied, with a grin. It disappeared when he saw how she swallowed and fixed her gaze on his closed hands.

Fenris approached slowly, after exchanging a nod with Hawke to make sure it was all right. He sat back down on his side of the bed, bending one leg and stretching the other out, as was his habit. And, as was her habit, Hawke reached for his bent knee and tapped along his thigh, a gesture that echoed the tickle of movement inside his cupped hands.

He caught her eye. "Let me know when you're ready."

Hawke nodded and licked her lips. "Not sure if I ever will be. Might as well take a leap, though." She extended her other arm toward him, across her body.

"Now?"

"Now."

In one swift movement, Fenris opened his hands and let the spider run from his index finger to the inside of Hawke's wrist.

* * *

They sat in a heap on the floor for a long time.

Fenris rested his head on top of Hawke's, waiting until her breathing slowed, holding her close.

"I failed."

"Don't say that."

"What am I doing here?"

"You know the answer, Hawke."

"I don't think I do."

Fenris racked his brain for what to say to that. _You're here to defeat Corypheus. _No, too obvious. _You're here because Stroud sacrificed himself in the Fade. _No! Fasta vass, how many times had she said those exact words on sleepless nights? _You're here because Varric revealed our location and we had no choice. _Accurate, but not helpful. None of this was helpful.

"I'd really like that hot compress now," said Hawke, before he could come up with anything better.

Fenris got up and placed the kettle back on the metal tray that hung over the fire. A molten red glow seeped out from beneath the burnt logs. He reached for the tinderbox on the narrow mantle, and had a thought.

"Can you help me with this, amata?"

Hawke dragged the heels of her hands over her face and glanced over at the fireplace, then at him. "Fen, you know I'm no good at fire magic. Can't you use the flint? It's right there."

"We only need a spark."

Hawke sighed and pushed herself up, bracing her back against the wall. She made her way over, her loose shift swaying with the rhythm of her gait. Fenris slipped an arm around her waist and gave her what he hoped was an encouraging look.

Everything about this scenario would have seemed absurd to him once. _Me, in the Frostbacks, encouraging my pregnant wife to do magic. Wanting to be close, to feel her touch. Vashedan. What elfroot have you been smoking?_

Hawke sighed again and rubbed her hands together. "Time to embarrass myself. I mean, we're long past that point, but, you know. Here goes."

She opened her hands in a supplicating gesture and closed her eyes. Her lips parted slightly, and her brows furrowed with effort until a smokeless flame rose from her palms, ragged and flickering, rising and falling, somehow not at all like a candle or a torch. Fenris held her steady as she lowered herself to the floor.

When she stretched toward the pile of smoldering wood, the flame guttered out.

Hawke swallowed a scream of frustration so that it became more of a growl and slammed her palms against the floor. She winced at the impact against the cold stone. "I was so close. Andraste's arse, I always think I can handle more than I really can. I never learn."

"You held the flame steady, even if you didn't fully make it," said Fenris, as he helped her up onto the bed, noticing the stiffness in the set of her shoulders. "I truly thought you would. I think you will do it, on a better day."

"Or I'll accidentally set my dress on fire like that time back in Lothering. All right, sorry, please don't look at me like that. Oh, Fen. I'm sorry. I'm such a mess these days." She let out a mirthless laugh. "You must be tired of dealing with me like this. It's supposed to be easier the second time, and I guess we have a better idea of what to do. But you have so much else to handle, and Marcus ran circles around us even before-"

"Riana. I'm not… _dealing with you_." It repulsed him, saying those words, even if only to refute them. "You were gone for months, in constant danger while carrying the child that we've wanted for so long. Every day I feared for you. I had to prepare myself for the possibility of raising Marcus alone. I didn't think I could do it, but I would have to, there was no choice. I needed to find new meaning here at Skyhold, the same as I'd done before. It took a long time, but I slowly found reasons to be happy."

"I could tell from your letters," said Hawke. "I read them so often, they're just tattered things now. It was good thinking on your part, how you gathered them all in a box."

"I didn't want to forget."

"Me neither. Except the parts where the rations weren't very satisfying and I snuck off to forage in the wilderness. Good thing we've been doing that for years already. Know thy mushroom. Anyway, go on, I interrupted."

Fenris smiled a little at how easily her frustration dissipated, despite the reminder of past hardship. The pain lingered beneath the surface; he knew that feeling all too well. He caressed her cheek as if to confirm that it was healthy and full.

"You aren't leading a group anymore," he said, gently. "There's no shame if you need to take your time. It's not too much to ask of me. We've already seen each other at far lower points and carried each other through. Please let me do that for you, Hawke."

She frowned at first, while he spoke. In the silence that followed, her expression mellowed into something calmer, sadder.

"I suppose you're right," she said, taking his hand. "Things aren't the same here as on the road, but it's been hard to shift my mind out of it. The habit's much older than that. A knot to be untangled." She stared at the bedspread, momentarily lost in thought. "Can I do something for you? Anywhere you might need a little push?"

"That isn't - Hawke, I'm fine, there's no need. Just rest."

"Oh, of course, but what if I want to feel useful for a bit? You know how bored I get."

She had a point. "Fair enough," he conceded, and leaned across the bed to get her a fresh towel from the nightstand. "There is one thing. I've realized there's a certain irony in how I make horseshoes and care for the horses when I'm fitting them, and yet whenever I attempt to ride horseback, I make a fool of myself. I'd like to be able to mount without spinning in a circle, and not be utterly terrified if I manage to stay on."

"Got it, so you'd like me to hang around the stables with you?"

"If you have the time and want to give advice. I assume you'd prefer to wait until after giving birth."

"That would be best. Plus, I'll be much more enthusiastic once my saddle sores are a distant memory. We'll probably be dead on our feet for a while anyway, even if this one sleeps as much as Marcus did at first."

The hot compress caused Hawke to close her eyes and relax with all the satisfaction of a cat in a sunbeam. Fenris took the opportunity to draft a reply to the letter he'd been reading. He folded the parchment, turned it over, and printed "Antonius" in neat, slanted runes. Tomorrow morning he would check over the details, seal it, and climb the spiral stairs to the rookery to send a raven to the liberati quarter of Carastes.

Fenris settled onto the bed and braced his arm behind Hawke, who opened one eye to see him. He kissed her jaw.

"I wish we could skip the banquet tonight," she grumbled.

"Believe me, I have already begun to make up excuses," he replied. "I'm not keen on another visiting noble snapping their fingers at me to refill their goblet. Although I do enjoy how they splutter and fall silent when I walk past to find my seat."

Hawke snorted. "Then they stare at us and curl their lips. Maker, we get enough of that on market day back home, just let us eat in peace."

"It should be a more tolerable evening if we sit with Bull's Chargers."

"Agreed, let's stick with them."

In the months since making the climb to Skyhold, Fenris had grown used to eating in the Great Hall or the tavern instead of cooking at his own hearth. Yet one aspect he would never get used to was the banquets. Typically they were organized to welcome visitors, but tonight was a diplomatic reception to celebrate the peace treaty negotiated at the Winter Palace.

Fenris was of two minds about this turn of events. It brought the Orlesian Civil War to an end and gained the Inquisition another much-needed ally against Corypheus, but the suffering that Hawke had witnessed on her journey back from Adamant would continue long afterward, while the nobility of Orlais plotted a new chapter of their Grand Game, caring nothing of the wreckage it would create for the most vulnerable, the ones they saw not as people at all. And still they saw themselves as so far apart from the cruel magisters of Tevinter. Such hypocrisy. The entire situation made Fenris profoundly uneasy. This hardly felt like peace.

The evening did have a few highlights, nonetheless. Bull's Chargers never seemed to run out of tales to tell, and the free-flowing wine was not exactly a hindrance to dramatic storytelling. Marcus behaved himself for the most part, telling everyone about the barn cat's new kittens and keeping his clothes miraculously free of gravy stains. Eventually Fenris noticed that he was nodding off and caught him before he could faceplant into his food.

"Interesting choice of a pillow, little one," he said, gathering Marcus into his lap. "Here we are. Is that better?"

"Not tired," Marcus mumbled, against his chest.

Fenris shifted them closer to Hawke to fill the gap on the bench. She was listening to Skinner and Rocky describe a perilous caving mission on the Storm Coast and eating herb bread and olives from a platter in front of her. Glancing over at Fenris, she pushed the food closer to him so he could reach it without stirring Marcus from his slow descent into sleep. Fenris ate a few olives, which were a little saltier than usual due to an extended pickling in the castle cellars, spit out the pits, and pondered how to quench his thirst. He tapped Hawke's arm and made a quiet request; she handed him his cup, their fingers touching over the engraved silverite. When he handed it back to her, she waggled her eyebrows and took a sip of the honey water for herself. He made a noise of feigned exasperation.

Hawke reached over to wrap Marcus' cloak around him in a warm bundle, giving him an indulgent pat on the cheek. "He's got the right idea. Eat your fill, ignore the speeches, and fall asleep whenever it suits you."

"I'll go put him to bed."

"All right. See you in a bit. I don't feel like sticking around any longer, either." She lowered her voice and added that, in the space of one Maker-damned hour, she was once again on the brink of pissing herself.

Fenris watched her waddle across the hall - a round, dark-haired human woman in a red dress, politely but confidently navigating around clusters of nobles and Skyhold residents, allowing no one to get between her and the privy - and felt a glow of affection, lived-in and worn soft around the edges. Different from what he felt when they played a cutthroat game of cards with their friends or when they lay entwined in the early morning, and yet somehow each was inextricable from the other. Odd timing, but there it was.

* * *

Once Marcus was tucked in, Fenris went for a walk in the cool night air. He often did this; it felt healthy, having time to be alone when he chose. Eventually he stopped, resting his elbows on the rough stone of the parapet, and gazed out over the clouded expanse of the Frostbacks. Torchlight flickered like a lizard's tail along the furrows and mortar lines in the walls of the nearby guard tower. Fenris was reminded of a dream he'd first had in Kirkwall: a gecko squiggling across the steep wall of an ancient ruin, under a sloped ceiling, along the margins of floor tiles caked with mud from soldiers' boots. Tevinter or Qunari, he couldn't say. His father had painted those tiles.

"Daddy?"

Fenris nearly jumped out of his skin. A small heap of blankets had materialized in the doorway of the guard tower.

"How did you get up here, Marcus? It isn't safe."

"I want a cuddle, please."

Softening, Fenris picked up his son, arranged the blankets so they covered him and didn't trail on the ground, and balanced him on his hip. "You should be in bed."

"I wanted a cuddle but Mummy is already asleep," said Marcus. His eyes were going in and out of focus.

"That quickly?"

Marcus nodded and rested his head against his father's shoulder.

"Would you like to stay up here a while?"

Another nod.

Fenris kissed his forehead and tousled his curls. Marcus was getting heavier, his limbs longer. He could run farther without being caught. There had been a time when he was so small that he fit inside the front of Fenris' shirt, all scrunched eyes and tiny fists. Fenris wondered if Marcus would believe it if he told him that. He wondered what it would be like to sit with him while holding his new sibling, letting Hawke rest like they were doing now. For a moment, he let himself imagine his mother sitting there with them. Her face was still a blank. It felt like a betrayal by his own mind. Had she received his second letter yet? Perhaps it was too late.

The evening chill had a way of settling into your clothes if you stood still for too long. Fenris shifted his weight from one leg to the other before starting a leisurely stroll down the length of the ramparts.

Far off in the distance, the cloud cover turned green, and pulsed.

That night, Fenris dreamed of cherry and apple blossoms mingled with the scent of the ocean wind, and a field of cinnamon bark drying on blankets in the sun.

* * *

_Note: this was beta read by kadaransmuggler, many thanks :)_


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